SECURITY VULNERABILITIES IN MODERN LMS

An effective learning management system (LMS) is a vital component of an E-Learning infrastructure in universities nowadays. Learning Management System can be seen as a structured repository of courseware materials provided with additional communication facilities such as discussion forum, annotations, chats, etc. LMS can be also seen as a communication area where students upload their assignments and get feedback from the teachers. From the technical perspective, LMS is an Internet-Based Information system serving a big number of remote users. In this paper, we present a list of security issues that we experienced during the years of practical LMS usage on the university level. We especially investigate security issues that are specific for the modern LMS that are constructed in accordance with the so-called AJAX architecture. The practical value of this paper is defined by possible reproduction of the security preconditions that are also described in the paper.